The invention relates to a method and apparatus for water treatment. The water treatment method and apparatus of the present invention may be used for treating water from any source and is particularly suited for treating industrial effluents and contaminated groundwater. Federal and state governments have promulgated statutes which impose severe civil and criminal penalties for discharging contaminants into the environment. To comply with the statutes, many industrial effluents must be treated to remove various contaminants. When a contaminant has been released onto land, remediation often requires extracting and treating the contaminated ground water.
A known method of treating water is with a contaminant removing media packed into an axial flow column. The contaminant removing media forms a porous matrix through which the contaminated water flows. As the contaminated water passes through the contaminant removing media, contaminants in the water are removed. The contaminant removing media may extract contaminants in a number of different ways including absorption, adsorption, ion exchange, affinity, hydrophilic interactions, hydrophobic interactions and other mechanisms known to those having skill in the art.
Axial flow columns are generally cylindrical and include an inlet at one end of the cylindrical column and an outlet at the other end of the column. When axial flow columns are scaled up for commercial purposes, larger columns are required. A typical commercial axial flow column can be as large as 20 feet high with a diameter of about 10 feet.
A problem which occurs when increasing the throughput of an axial flow column is that the combination of high flow rate and large bed height results in a high pressure drop across the media. The high pressure drop compresses the media which adversely affects the flow pattern through the column. Compression of the media contributes to channeling which greatly reduces the efficiency of the axial flow column.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved system for removing contaminants from water using contaminant removing media. Another object of the present invention is to identify appropriate contaminant removing media to be used with the preferred contaminant removing system.